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On December 5, 2012, the Criminal Court of Lisbon acquitted a Public Security Police (PSP) agent accused of negligent homicide of a 14-year-old boy in the suburbs of Amadora, in 2009. The announcement of the court's decision reignited the debate about racism and marginalized communities in Portugal, particularly in the outskirts of Lisbon, and multiplied the amount of social media commentary repudiating the Portuguese judicial system.

In January 2009, three PSP agents were patrolling the surrounding areas of Amadora (dressed in plainclothes and in an uncharacterized vehicle), when they cornered a vehicle carrying five robbery suspects, including a minor named Elson Sanches, or Kuku, the son of Cape Verdean immigrants. A chase unfolded, which ended with Kuku shot dead. No one witnessed the incident, except the agent who fired in alleged self-defense.

A few days later, a protest against racism and police violence was organized in Amadora. Passa Palavra collective reported on it and shared a video that features rapper Chullage reading a manifesto asking for justice:

They prepared and orchestrated the propaganda so that all that the media would report about that young man was: he was a criminal. And so it was right that the police had struck him with a bullet, because he was criminal. But here in Portugal we have courts, so even the criminals have to go through the courts (…). In the case of Kuku it was the death penalty, executed by police.

Plataforma Gueto collective, which has been closely following the case, stated last November that the ongoing trial was “on the way to becoming yet another case of impunity for the racist executions by the police”. The collective organized a “HIP HOP for justice” concert in solidarity with of the aim of raising funds for the legal costs of the proceedings. Plataforma Gueto is also preparing a documentary titled “Violência Policial e Racismo: O Caso do Kuku” (Police violence and racism: Kuku's case), with the objective of “giving voice to the case of Kuku and to the violent racist situation that runs in the streets, police stations and Portuguese prisons”:

In the verdict, read on December 5, the judge stated that the environmental factors surrounding the incident indicated that the agent's life was in danger, which prompted him to act in such a manner, as reported in more detail by Público newspaper.

SOS Racismo was one of the first organizations to react, calling the agent's acquittal “scandalous” and stressing that this verdict “portrays the profound racism in the Portuguese society”.

Stencil in a wall in Amadora. Screenshot of the documentary “Violência Policial e Racismo: O Caso do Kuku”.

Buala also republished a note of protest by Chullage, which underlined:

From the racial point of view [the justice system] works just perfect. Legitimizing the institutional racist violence from which police violence is [only] a part, or the eviction and removal of people is another. Legitimizing the use of force to keep us in our place. The No Place.

“For those who believe in justice, today is a sad day”, pointed out the blog Crise Maria, which stated that “keeping in mind all the flagrancies of the situation surrounding the death of Elson Sanches, it is surprising that there isn't even one condemnation”:

What about this dangerous neighborhood business? A place where blacks live, working families, exploited and without access to documentation, with precarious contracts, families without financial capacity so that their children can attend the university? Are there more robberies and violent crime in downtown Lisbon or at Quinta da Lage in Amadora? And if a prejudiced classification does exists, isn't the PSP supposed to have appropriate training if their assignment is to patrol these neighborhoods? By the way, are the young residents of these hazardous locations also benefited by the justice when they go to trial because they live there? Or perhaps they go to prison faster when compared to those living elsewhere?

In an article published on 5dias, under the title “Nenhum homem é estrangeiro” (No man is a foreigner), Bruno Carvalho wrote about visits he made to the outlying neighborhoods of Santa Filomena and Cova da Moura, where families and “children of those who left Africa for Europe searching for a better life” live, and what those experiences taught him about “what black people feel when they leaves the neighborhood”.

Some online reaction to the case has commented on the stereotype attached to place where Kuku was killed: a social housing in the outskirts of Great Lisbon. An Amadora resident, Jakilson Pereira, shared a note on Facebook:

In these whereabouts called suburbs, inhabited by blacks, roma and poor whites, the “Kuku” are constant, the acquitted Caxineiro [police] are constant.

Screenshot of the documentary “Violência Policial e Racismo: O Caso do Kuku”. Kuku's mother next to a graffiti in tribute to her son.

Recently launched newspaper Mapa reported that “the neighborhoods in Amadora are a laboratory of experimentation available to authorities so that they may rehearse techniques and methods of action”. The article quotes a young resident from Amadora who stated:

Due to the enormous stigma that exists in relation to social housing, the unreasonable and repressive [police] operations have a much greater acceptance by the public than if they were performed in a neighborhood of upper-middle class, for instance. (…) This experimentation happens daily, to a lesser extent, with identifications, arrests, or provocations, but also takes place in a larger scale such as the police operations carried out in August in which armored vehicles were used in sweeps, something unheard of in Portugal. Due to the economic and social situation we are experiencing at the moment, these social housing projects are ideal for experimentation and use of force as a means of training for future situations.

The post by Bruno Carvalho mentioned above added that those who live in the outskirts already knew what goals the armored vehicles acquired by the state for the NATO Summit in 2010 [en] were supposed to serve – “they didn't arrive on time for the meeting but they arrived in time of invading Amadora”. He concluded:

Of course there are black criminals as there are white criminals. There are thieves and traffickers. They don't have white collars and they do not see their debts nationalized. But there are mainly innocent [people]. The ones who commit crime aren't forgiven for doing so, but police should keep in mind that they already feel guilty enough and don't need to beat them. For the media, in the neighborhoods there are no innocents, and the lives of criminals, real or not, is worth less. The state orders, the newspapers report and police shoot.